Sunday, July 28, 2013

Among the concept art for Star Wars Rebels that was revealed at Star Wars Celebration Europe II was the concept art for a new ship that will feature prominently in the series.

May I present the Ghost.

This will be the main character's ship and Filoni mentioned that he wanted it to feel like a home, much like the Millennium Falcon was in the Original Trilogy.

If you look a the cockpit you will notice a significant difference between the Ghost and the Falcon.

This is a much different cockpit design then the Falcon, notice the distinct lack of passenger room. It is not clear from the images shown, but if you notice the double-bubble cockpit in the Ghost, it appear that the side-view shot is actually the nose-gunner's seat and not the pilot's seat. Based on the presumption of a need for one pilot and two gunners to man the front and top-side laser canons, it implies that the Ghost would carry a standard crew of three.

Two pilot seats and two passenger seats in the cockpit.

Design wise this certainly looks to be heavily influenced by the Falcon. Notice the starboard and port airlocks. To my eyes it looks like a ship influenced by the Corellian Engineering Corporations (CEC) XS stock light frieghter, the CEC YT-1000, but with a more angular and less rounded astetic, possibily influenced by the Delta-7 and 7b Jedi starfighters.

XS Freighter

YT-1000

Ahsoka's Delta 7-B

Some other notes about the shape of Ghost.

You will notice two symbols that are present on the craft. One is the same one that was made into a button and given to those who attended the Celebration Rebels panel. The other symbol is not yet identified.

Note that the button cuts off the bottom portion of the "Y" shaped black mark at the bottom of the symbol.

In the description below it mentions that the Ghost contains a turret (top mounted), airlocks (starboard and port), a ramp (not seen lowered), a fighter dock, and cargo pod clamps.

The Falcon had a single boarding ramp on the starboard side below the airlock. If you look at the bottom right concept art their is a darker grey area below so the Ghost may have it's boarding ramp on the port side. Some YT-1300's had multiple boarding ramps, so it is possible that Ghost has more then one. It is also possible that the square area below the nose gun is a boarding ramp.

The Ghost features three landing gear and four cylindrical engines. The engines are different than the 'wide bar' engine that the YT-1300 possessed. Interestingly according to the Haynes Millennium Falcon Owner's Workshop Manual, the wide bar engine "generates greater thrust and has multiple steering flaps that allow for unprecedented maneuverability for a YT, but because some pilots were unable or unwilling to adapt to the more controlled engine system, CEC offered cylindrical engines as an alternative." (pg. 17)

The Manual further notes that, "interestingly, most pilots who preferred cylindrical engines on the YT-1300 also preferred a central-mounted cockpit.

The size and the number of engines makes it look like Ghost is going to be a very fast ship, but with relatively light weaponry.

It is not readily visible where the cargo clamps are on the vessel and where the fighter dock is. The mandibles on the front of Ghost do not appear to extend past the bubble cockpit, so using those to dock or as clamps would seem to be problematic before even talking about the line of sight issues it could create.

A close reading of the top right image on the concept art layout appears to say in part, "Please see 'Ghost Ext (Notes)' for additional notes on how the fighter connects to the ship and details on the docking area." It also has a yellow arrow pointing to the port side of the ship.

UPDATE:

A detailed schematic and translation provided to us by Bothan spies over at Rebel Forces Radio gives us more insight into the ship.

So we now know the ships classification as part of the VCX series. We have confirmation that like the Millennium Falcon, this is a CEC produced ship. Does this mean we will see Corellians or Corellia in the series? I hope so.

We also get confirmation that the concept art side-shot we have above is actually the "nose turret's gunner position" which sits directly below and in front of the main cockpit.

The co-author of The Essential Guide to Warfare chimes in on Twitter with the following comment regarding the Ghost.

That is all we know about the Ghost, one thing is for sure, this is no Consular ship.

In many ways the penultimate book in a large series is the most difficult to write. The author must begin the process of weaving th...

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